Humidity
by intodust
Summary: Alec has dreams.


Title: Humidity  
  
Author: intodust  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Summary: Alec has dreams.  
  
Disclaimer: Dark Angel belongs to 20th Century Fox and Cameron/Eglee Productions.  
  
Notes: Feedback would be wonderful.  
  
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He dreams: worlds of ice and snow and ghosts. He's chasing one of them, an intangible woman, and when he finds her, she bleeds and melts and he kneels in her remains. He cries and the tears pool on top of her blood-water, unable to blend.   
  
He dreams: she's standing at the window she turns to him and smiles her hair is auburn in the sun and her hands are graceful and then she slaps him and then all he sees is fire and they're asking him torturing him hot metal and he screams.  
  
He dreams: mouths and blood and falling. He's talking to Logan, trying to ask him why. He's looking for a word, something, and Logan says that he'll tell him, but it'll cost. He asks how much as he reaches for his wallet. Logan smiles. "Her," he says, handing Alec the knife.   
  
He awakens shuddering and covered in sweat. His shirt is soaked and he's tangled in the sheets. He hates dreaming, even when he can't remember the dreams. He is too warm - the whole apartment is too warm - and he thinks he should open a window. He slides out of bed and even the floor is hot on his bare feet. He heads into the living room, feeling oddly exposed and vulnerable. Nerves, he tells himself. It's just his mind playing tricks, but he still hates it.  
  
The apartment is quiet and oppressively still. He doesn't know why he would have expected it to be otherwise. He spends too much time around Max and her paranoid boyfriend, maybe. It's starting to rub off, but maybe for the better. He shrugs, pulling open the window.   
  
The air outside is cool on his face and he sees that the snow, at least, was real. The street is covered in it, coated in white. It reminds him of Manticore, of training exercises. They wanted to know how long their soldiers could last in extreme temperatures. He always shivered, but he never fell. He wanted to be a good soldier. It was the only way.   
  
The only way to what?  
  
He sighs and turns from the window. The air inside is cooling down and soon it will be almost comfortable. He wonders if he should try going back to sleep, but he doesn't want to dream again. He can function on a few hours' sleep, if not completely comfortably. He's envious of the ones who didn't need sleep, who never had to dream.   
  
Like Max.  
  
He wonders if she thinks she's missing something.  
  
Not that he cares.  
  
He shivers slightly, remembering the feeling of the knife in his hand as he stood above her fallen body and the way the dream-Logan looked when he handed Alec the same knife. He wonders if that gave Max nightmares, if it scared her to be around him. He wonders if it still does. She knows he's not the same as her. She got out. Sometimes he wonders if she thinks less of him because he didn't. Sometimes she looks at him like he's a killer, and he wants to tell her that she is, too. She just made it out a little sooner.  
  
She thinks that she's better than him, and maybe she is. Maybe escaping made her better. Maybe he was weak not to try. He doesn't know, and maybe he doesn't want to know. If he'd gotten out, would he have ended up like 493 - Ben? It doesn't feel right to refer to him as "brother." They shared DNA and a childhood, nothing more. Nothing more, but Max still sees Ben when she looks at him. He's the survivor, the brother who lived, but he's still a fucking ghost.  
  
He drops into the chair, shoving his leather jacket onto the floor. If he's a ghost, does that mean he's haunting? He used to be afraid of 'nomalies, and now he's one of them. He smiles, but it's not funny. He pulls the bottle off the table and then he remembers that it's empty. Max says he drinks too much. Max says a lot of things. He wonders when he started to listen.   
  
She's going to get killed. She's going to get him killed. The thing is, now he cares. He thinks about going into the kitchen for another bottle, but decides against it. Instead, he throws the empty bottle against the wall, where it shatters with a crash. The shards sparkle in the darkness as he sits in the darkness with the window open, and he cries. 


End file.
